Mappers' first world problems

7 hours ago, bemused said:

Revs and viles clearly being bigger than the gzdb box suggests they are

The hitbox for a revenant is smaller than its sprites suggest it is. I suppose the same might be true for archviles, but I have never noticed it myself.

If you accidentally autoalign or anything else you don't want to do, CTRL-Z will undo it. That doesn't help if you don't notice it right away, though. Also, if you accidentally undo something you didn't want to undo, CTRL-Y will redo it, as long as you haven't done something else since then.

Getting started with a blank map can be intimidating.

Like The_SloVinator, item/monster placement is my least favorite part of making a map.

Realizing half the decorations in my map have difficulty or class flags because of the way placing things in DB works. Sorry HMP players, you don't get to enjoy this torch.

13 minutes ago, whirledtsar said:

Realizing half the decorations in my map have difficulty or class flags because of the way placing things in DB works. Sorry HMP players, you don't get to enjoy this torch.

I vaguely recall there being at least one old wad that used skill flags on decorations on purpose to leave the player a "what skill level am I playing on, again?" reminder for some reason.  There was also an old editing document that talked about moving keys around for different skill levels but I don't know if anyone actually implemented that anywhere.

Even the original designers did a bit of it.

38 minutes ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

There was also an old editing document that talked about moving keys around for different skill levels but I don't know if anyone actually implemented that anywhere.

The blue key in MAP06: The Crusher comes to mind.

Memento Mori map29 uses multiplayer-only torches to open up the single-player route through the map and to block it off in multiplayer games. I always thought that was really clever usage of those spawning flags.

...

This isn't strictly a mapping problem but have you ever tried to mess with animated textures and end up making every wall and floor cycle through each texture in the game? Oh boy that can be a really fun one to fix.

Also, loading up a WAD and ending up with 100+ texture errors, another of my favorites.

The fact that diagonals exist to make maps interesting, but also to torture and traumatize the mapper.

On 1/1/2019 at 9:40 PM, bemused said:

Not having a clue how to sequentially tag stuff, and having to do everything by hand

have you checked out the tag range feature in gzdb? it allows you to do just this. I can select 10 sectors, go to tag range and tell it to sequentially tag starting at tag 50, and it will tag the sectors ascending, in the order I selected them. you can also combine this with the "select all adjacent surfaces with same flat and height" shortcut in 3d mode (which I think might be ctrl + shift + left click, by default) to more easily do this for adjacent sectors that make up weird, non rectangular shapes.

I think we should have a map editor shortcuts/tips compendium thread actually, with brief gifs for each one, because I imagine a lot of convenient features go unused. I still have no idea how to use the curve tool properly for example D:

13 hours ago, Spie812 said:

Memento Mori map29 uses multiplayer-only torches to open up the single-player route through the map and to block it off in multiplayer games. I always thought that was really clever usage of those spawning flags.

 

...

 

This isn't strictly a mapping problem but have you ever tried to mess with animated textures and end up making every wall and floor cycle through each texture in the game? Oh boy that can be a really fun one to fix.

 

Also, loading up a WAD and ending up with 100+ texture errors, another of my favorites.

Nice idea to have different paths blocked/opened on multiplayer or different difficulties...

I've had that animating problem many times. In a fact everytime when I compile my project and remove unused textures and run it in prBoom+. Very annoying!

And this..

I somehow accidentially moved one sector and then continued editing elsewhere. Luckily I had previous copy of the map from the point that I could copy/paste all things I modified with quite a little effort.

There is no geometry bend in Doom Builder

- Working like a madman on ceiling detail adding a bunch of sectors and stuff, only to realize much later, that I destroyed half of my floor detail.

- Aligning GSTONE1, god I hate this texture.

Haha nice thread, I put some more:

• When you reach the limit of 65536 linedefs and you have to remove detail from a vanilla map to continue mapping
• When you spend hours introducing new enemies and weapons to realize later that they break the gameplay of the map
• When you upload your ultra-tested map to /idgames and after a while you receive messages about the map having errors
• When doombuilder closes with an error and there is no copy of the work
• When a release of new gzdoom version breaks or mess up your previous maps (It just happened to me with the supply depot)

On 1/1/2019 at 7:32 PM, Doomkid said:

When I map for too long in one session, getting lost ‘in the zone’ then I try to stand up too quickly and get a leg cramp. I hate that bullshit and always stop and have a proper stretch/cool glass of water whenever it happens.

My Mrs also suffers from leg cramps, usually in the middle of the night. A few months ago, she started eating more potassium (she tries to have a banana every day), and has been getting them a lot less frequently ever since.

On-topic: noticing something I need to fix/change during a playthrough, then going back into the editor and completely forgetting to do it!

On 1/2/2019 at 3:41 PM, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

There was also an old editing document that talked about moving keys around for different skill levels but I don't know if anyone actually implemented that anywhere.

E3M6 has a key in different locations based on skill level. I think there was a recent CP where one of the maps did that, but I couldn't find it. In the process of looking, however, I came upon "Wicked be the Ways of Men" by Rex Clausen (described to and linked in this post), which also has skill-based key locations.

2 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

 

My Mrs also suffers from leg cramps, usually in the middle of the night. A few months ago, she started eating more potassium (she tries to have a banana every day), and has been getting them a lot less frequently ever since.

 

On-topic: noticing something I need to fix/change during a playthrough, then going back into the editor and completely forgetting to do it!

Sea salt and or magnesium under tongue also can help during cramp. I've had quite painfull ones which relieved that way.

I sometimes alt+tab to editor to change things immediately. Sometimes I forgot too.

Opening the editor full of inspiration and excitement for the thing I'm about to create, only for all that to fizzle out as soon as I have something that remotely resembles a map in progress (I've complained about this issue elsewhere already). I know what kind of map I want to make, I have the skills and knowledge to pull it off, and all the motivation I have vanishes after an hour of working on it. I find myself physically and emotionally unable to continue working on the map. A 'Mapper's Block', if you will.

Trying to get those upper and lower texture alignments just right COME ON YOU FUCKING TEXTURE WHY DO YOU DO THIS ASAASDAFSAdgdh FINE I'll just make the ceiling a different HEIGHT THEN.

Ditto on the accidental auto-align, more so if you don't notice it and find something you aligned ages ago suddenly off during testing.

Last one is...a stupid one yes but a pain- testing a map only to find actions not working- going back to see that you set a switch to W instead of S

6 hours ago, Fuzzball said:

Last one is...a stupid one yes but a pain- testing a map only to find actions not working- going back to see that you set a switch to W instead of S

the worst :( I playtest for like 5 minutes to finally arrive at the new area and find it doesn't even work right because of this. every time it happens I think, "I should really start playtesting new areas by moving the player start and running through with nomonsters first" but then I never actually do heeeh

This.>_<

7 hours ago, Сhaingunner said:

This.>_<

I would suggest to use gzdoombuilder. As far as I know it is more stable.

Is it just most finicky on Win10 or something? I rarely if not never have the crashing issue with DB2 and it's my primary map editor of choice.. Running on Win7 myself though.

8 minutes ago, Fuzzball said:

Is it just most finicky on Win10 or something? I rarely if not never have the crashing issue with DB2 and it's my primary map editor of choice.. Running on Win7 myself though.

the big difference is people using DB2 and people using DBX...

DBX is vastly more stable than GZDB-bugfix, and also has gotten rid of many bugs that caused DB2 to crash. Also GZDB is pretty resource hungry, so if you're working on lower spec systems such as laptops it can crash due to lack of system resources available, which is an issue DBX does not have.

edit: I'm pretty sure that screenshot from chaingunner is a DB2 screenie, not a DBX screenie

Slime trails and other rendering bugs showing up in intricate structures you've spend a lot of time on. Is there any foolproof way to get rid of them, other than moving vertices around until the problem somehow fixes itself?

Lifts/raising walls etc. giving you HOMs because you've forgotten to put upper/lower textures on linedefs.

Related: Doom Builder's "find errors" mode alerting you about "unnecessary" upper/lower textures, when half of them are in fact supposed to be revealed during play.

On 1/7/2019 at 5:31 PM, NiGHTMARE said:

On-topic: noticing something I need to fix/change during a playthrough, then going back into the editor and completely forgetting to do it!

That's why I keep note paper and a pen on hand while playtesting.

when you delete one redundant sector and half of your temple/forest/magical fairy castle turns into STARTAN

I hate vine midtextures that the player can walk through.

When I want to make ennemies teleport but I forget to place teleport destinations.

Or also.

When I want to make ennemies teleport but I forget to uncheck deaf option on ennemies.

Also , I hate when I forget to uncheck "Multiplayer only"  after placing many items for singleplayer.

Giving wad masterpiece a proper name, because I have problems with naming things or starting map the way I  want.

On 1/9/2019 at 12:21 PM, JudgeDeadd said:

That's why I keep note paper and a pen on hand while playtesting.

I do that too. There's no way I can remember all the stuff I want to change / fix. Sometimes I'll read my notes and one of the things I jotted down doesn't make any sense especially if I got slack and decided to fix stuff at some other time..

Spending two hours building a room with all the details, and then end up deleting the entire room and start over just because I don't like it.

Sitting down for the first time in months to finally finish that map that's been sitting on your hard drive since about four years ago, opening up the map in Doom Builder, drawing one sector, and thinking, "I really don't feel like doing this right now."

9 minutes ago, Dutch Doomer said:

Spending two hours building a room with all the details, and then end up deleting the entire room and start over just because I don't like it.

Spending two hours building a room with all the details, and then spending another week working on it, the entire time thinking to myself "this is awful I hate this I need to just delete this and start over" and eventually stopping work on the map altogether because I can't actually bring myself to delete the area and start over.